Into Evernight: an Urban Fantasy Novel (Fearless Destiny Book 2)
Page 1
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
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INTO EVERNIGHT
Fearless Destiny Series
Debbie Cassidy
COPYRIGHT
Published by Debbie Cassidy
Copyright © 2017 Debbie Cassidy
All Rights Reserved
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, duplicated, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior written consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
Cover by 'Covers by Julie'
Edited by Read Head Editing.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
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About the author
1
I hammered on the door to the two-story, red-brick, semi-detached residence. “Mrs Watkins, you need to let us in!”
“Go away.” The voice was muffled by the wood between us.
I backed out of the way. “We’re gonna have to break it down.”
Brett was already holding the necessary lever tool, and it took him less than a minute to breach the lock.
Mrs Watkins stumbled back as we strode into the carpeted entrance hall. “You’re not having her. You can’t. I won’t let you!” She rushed me, wild-eyed and crazy-haired.
Brett grabbed her shoulders to hold her back. “It’s for her safety ma’am. If she stays here, she dies. I promise you, we’ll take good care of her.”
The woman shook her head. “No, no. Please, she’s all I have.”
She thought she was protecting her daughter, but in reality she was giving her a death sentence by not getting out of the fucking way. Sandra Watkins, thirteen years old and on the verge of blooming, was in terrible danger
“If you don’t get out of the way now, you will lose her. A denizen attack could happen at any moment,” Brett said.
“We’re safe. The house was remodelled two years ago, there’s nowhere for a breach to occur.”
Dammit. Why the heck didn’t these people watch the fucking news? “The breach doesn’t have to be in the house. It could be two blocks away, or a mile, but as a potential Emergent, your daughter will be a target.”
“No, that can’t be right.”
I was done explaining. “Brett, keep her down here.”
Shoving past, I took the stairs two at a time. The state-of-the-art prosthetic I was sporting was pretty awesome. It fit like a glove, which meant no pain, and it was strong—super strong. It brought out the old Kenna—the one who could take on the world and win.
I stepped onto the landing. “Sandra? Sandra! Hun, you need to come with us.”
There were three bedrooms and a bathroom. The bathroom door was wide open, the room beyond empty. But the bedroom doors were closed.
I pushed open the door to my left and stepped in “Sandra?”
This looked like the mother’s room; dresser, double bed, clothes rack, and nothing more. I strode to the rack and pushed the clothes aside to make sure the kid wasn’t hiding there.
“Kenna, suns going down!” Brett called from the bottom of the stairs.
Yeah, sun down on the south side was dark. The luma shortage had left most of the boroughs without any luma at all. The streets were no longer safe for anyone. The second room—a small box room—was also empty.
Final room. She had to be in here. “Sandra, I’m gonna come in now.” I pushed open the door. “There’s nothing to be afraid of. I promise you.”
She was sitting on her bed, wide-eyed and tear-stained.
“Are you going to take me away?” she asked.
“Yeah, we are, but only for a little while. Just until you emerge, and then you can come right on home.”
“But Mum said … she said I’d never see her again.”
“Your mum doesn’t have all the facts, hun. Look, why don’t you grab a few things and we can get going? It’s a really nice place and there are other kids your age there. Once you’re settled we can see about your mum coming to visit.”
She nodded, wiping at her eyes. “Okay.”
She walked over to her wardrobe. Behind her, through the window, the sky was a palate of dying reds and burnt oranges. It was a neat room for an almost teenager, with plenty of books and a small red radio that sat in a prize position on a dresser that held pretty nail varnish and a silver-handled brush.
I took it all in just as a wave of wrongness washed over me, an awareness of something other. The mother had said they’d remodelled but the wardrobe …
She was gripping the handles about to pull.<
br />
“Sandra. No!”
I leapt toward her, knocking her out of the way just as the doors burst open and darkness embedded with a multitude of eyes exploded into the room. Sandra’s scream was muted by the rush of blood in my ears, by the whoosh of Frieda coming to life in my hands.
Her cries were background noise as I swung, rolled, and came to my feet to stab and slice until the denizen was folding in on itself.
Until it was no more.
“Oh god, oh god.”
Shit, she was shaking like a leaf. “It’s okay.”
The thunder of boot falls was followed a second later by Brett’s huge bulk. He ground to a halt in the doorway, his eyes going from Frieda, to the wardrobe, and then to Sandra.
“We good?” he asked.
“Yeah we’re good. Just need to close the breach.”
“I’ll do it.” Brett set to work on the wardrobe.
I turned to Sandra but she wasn’t looking at me, she was staring at her wrist. At the bud that was opening before our very eyes, and the word that would seal her fate.
Fearless.
2
“That’s the earliest it’s ever happened,” Brett said.
“The powers-that-be are getting desperate.” I sipped my tea, needing the caffeine. “We’re low on numbers.” My sleep had been sketchy recently, interrupted by some pretty weird dreams.
“But she’s just a child.”
“Not anymore.”
Brett stared at me unblinkingly. “You’ve changed.”
“Now that’s an understatement. You know what I am.”
“Knowing and actually seeing it are too different things. The Kenna I knew would never have spoken so callously about throwing children into a war.”
“I’m still me Brett, I just happen to know the shit we’re up against. If we’re gonna have a chance of surviving, then we need to be prepared. All Emergents, regardless of age, will be trained, but active duty won’t begin until they’re sixteen, unless …”
“Unless what?”
“Unless circumstances give us no choice.”
Brett exhaled and dropped his gaze.
My stomach clenched, but I ignored it. This was the right thing to do, the only thing to do if we were going to have a shot at survival. “You know I’m right.”
He puffed out his cheeks. “Yeah, but it sucks.”
The knot in my stomach loosened a fraction. “I know.”
Everything was so life-and-death at the moment, so doomsday evasion, that I really needed a subject change.
“So, do you like what I’ve done with the place?”
I leaned back in my swivel seat and opened my arms to encompass my office. The dark colours were gone, replaced by warmer red and gold tones.
Brett grinned. “What I would have liked to see was Blane’s face when he found out he’d been demoted and transferred, and you’d been given his old job.”
“Yeah, that’s one snapshot for the album.” I tapped the side of my head.
The official story was that I’d used my training to survive Evernight and provide the government with the intel they needed to thwart the hoard attack. I was a hero. A promotion and a brand spanking new leg was the least they could do for me.
Brett’s deduction that the denizens were targeting potential Emergents had gotten back to Baal, who’d used his connections to create a technomagical device that allowed us to locate all potential Emergents. Every citizen’s blood sample was held in a database, all the technicians needed to do was run the data through the device since Fearless all shared a genetic marker. The downside was that the marker only activated a few months before Emergents Bloomed, which meant that once we got a hit we were on a clock.
Two months down the line, we had it down to an art form—a secure facility to house the teens until they Bloomed, and specialised teams on call for extractions. It was all going to plan, except for the fact we still had no idea who was responsible for targeting them. All we knew was that it had to be linked to the disappearance of Crawford—the mage responsible for the original spell creating the Destiny Blooms and the Fearless.
We find Crawford, we find the culprit.
“Has Lauren been in contact?” Brett asked.
“Not yet.”
Turned out that Baal knew the black mages, and Lauren was his contact in Twilight. All intel indicated that Crawford was also in Twilight, but the black mages had failed to locate him.
“It’s been almost three weeks since we last had contact,” Brett pointed out. “That’s what? Almost six months in Twilight?” He shrugged. “Maybe Crawford just isn’t there.”
“Twilight is a big place, filled with endless oceans, wild forests, cities, and villages. So I can imagine it might take a little time to find a single individual, and if someone powerful has him—is hiding him, or working with him—then finding him may prove impossible.”
“You’ve been spending way too much time with your djinn dude.”
“I haven’t spoken to Erebus in months.”
“I meant Baal.”
My cheeks heated and I averted my gaze. Of course he did. Get it together Carter.
Baal had taught me so much in the last couple of months, like the fact that Twilight was ruled by three sovereign courts: Dawn, Dusk, and Twilight. The Twilight court was the most powerful, and its king, according to Baal, was pretty fearsome.
“Kenna? You still with me?”
“Of course. I was just thinking about the other world, about the fifth dimension.”
Brett dropped his gaze, gnawing on his bottom lip. I picked up my mug of lukewarm tea and took a deliberate sip. It was a moment, one of many, where we were both reminded that my time in Lindrealm was numbered. In less than a month I’d be making a grab for the throne. In less than a month I’d be responsible for a whole new world. I would be helping bring about peace, but I’d be leaving behind this life. The one I’d chosen above all the others.
Change of subject required.
“So how’s Karl?”
Brett’s cheeks went pink, and I stifled a giggle.
“Yeah, he’s … okay.”
“More than okay if your cowboy walk the other day was anything to go by.”
“Kenna!”
I couldn’t help it, he looked so horrified. The laugh came out as a series of snorts and then he was giggling too—like a bloody girl—and we were both in fits.
My phone buzzed and beeped as a text was delivered.
MEET ME ON THE ROOF
“I got to dash.”
“You want me to hold the fort for you?” Brett asked.
I nodded and fake knighted him with my mobile. “I hereby deputise you in my absence.”
Yeah, we’d been doing this a lot. I had stuff to learn, places to see, and since the big boss was now a friend, I got to do it on work time.
I headed for the door, a tiny bubble of excitement mingled with anxiety expanding in my chest.
I told myself it was because I would soon be airborne, and flying in the eye of a mini tornado just wasn’t my thing. But I suspected it was more to do with the arms that would soon be holding me.
Baal.
3
“Hello breezy.”
Baal rolled his eyes. “You know I hate it when you call me that.”
The slight twitch of his lips told me he didn’t hate it that much. In fact, I suspected he liked it quite a bit.
Levity was my shield and I used it liberally. “So, we ready to jet?”
He held out his arms and I stepped into them, into the scent that drove me crazy. Levity was my only defence against his proximity. It was a wedge, a barrier, a reminder that I was not to lick the djinn.
The air held a definite bite, but I’d deliberately neglected to pick up my jacket. I wouldn’t need it where I was going.
His arms closed around me and his signature scent of liquorice wafted up my nostrils. It teased my brain cells, forcing me to clench my teeth and wonder, for the umptee
nth time, why he couldn’t just change deodorant, or whatever else djinn used.
His breath wafted over my head. “Ah, almost forgot.”
He leaned back and lifted my wrist, sliding a silver bangle onto it. It carried glamour to hide my mortal body and amplify my djinn nature. There were no humans in the fifth dimension, and even though I was technically djinn, my body was mortal. My excursions needed to be undercover until I claimed my throne and made a few changes to the status quo.
His arms tightened around my waist, and I wrapped mine around his neck. His mini cyclone of air surrounded us and we were off.
Just Baal, his scent, and my distraught libido.
“Where are we off to today?”
“The Cinder Market.”
“Sounds hot.”
His chest rumbled. “Oh believe me, it is. It’s located on the borderlands of the Cinder Lands, so it’s sweltering. But for collectors of the rare it’s the place to be.”
“Are we looking for something rare?”
“Always.”
It was on the tip of my tongue to ask what we were searching for, but I’d learned over the past few months that pushing Baal never worked. If he wanted to share something with me, he’d do so in his own time. I bit back my questions and tried not to enjoy the ride too much.
We landed in an alley of red crumbling brick dotted with black railed balconies. Colourful fabrics, pinned to clothes lines, fluttered in a breeze so warm it reminded me of the blast of air that hit you in the face when you opened a hot oven.
Baal released me and stepped back.
My clothes were immediately stuck to my body with perspiration, but a quick glance at Baal showed him to look cool and unaffected. His cream tunic brought out the tan to his skin and the green in his eyes. His indigo hair was brushed back and curled under his ears.
He flashed me a smile. “If you’re done admiring my good looks, then maybe you can turn your attention to our surroundings.”
Heat crawled up my neck “I was not admiring your … face.”
He chuckled and strode off. “You really were.”
Arrogant so and so. Plucking at the collar of my shirt, I followed. Fuck it was hot.
“I should have changed my clothes before we came. Denim really isn’t the material for this weather.”
“I’m sorry. I forget how your mortal body reacts to this environment. You could just take it off.” His lips twitched. “I could glamour you to look as if you’re clothed.”